Just curious. Where was it stated that all spellcasters were 6th level spontaneous? I don't doubt validity or anything, I just want to check out that source too.It was in the paizo Q&A livestream. All casters will be, at least from the most recent information, 6th level spontaneous casters.
For now. All casters in the core rules will be 6 level casters, but they have left the option for higher level casters later on.
It seemed to me that goblin pilots didn't have a special ramming ability outside the willingness to ram larger ships, which seems to be a poor choice of actions. Which of course, is very goblin.
"All" casters seems to be a slightly misleading turn of phrase. As far as we know there are only two casting classes.
Yes, all casters in the core rules.
It seemed to me that goblin pilots didn't have a special ramming ability outside the willingness to ram larger ships, which seems to be a poor choice of actions. Which of course, is very goblin.It might be that their ships have something design wise to survive ramming.
unless they've gotten over their fear of letters and adapted past just-above-doglike intelligence, I don't expect they're designing any ships. Stealing yes. Forcing someone to make it go, probably. But designing and building ships seems a little much.
The stamina and hp thing is worrying me sounds like vigor in the old star wars system and I hated that.
Yes the stamina, hit point, and resolve break up would be like vigor from the old Star Wars. That being said I think Stamina will be something that is recovered quickly. Hit Point damage will be the more serious and long lasting damage. I think resolve will be used to regain stamina and maybe boost some abilities and feats. What is not known is if there are any effects or conditions applied if you take hit point damage. I am leaning toward no. I am not sure of that though. There was a condition applied to one of the characters during combat Off-target. Not sure how it was applied.
Dave2
From the Nerdarchy interview, we get "Both Spellcasters" thrown around several times. I suppose that would be Mystic and Technomancer, with Solarian not technically being a spellcaster. I keep seeing more and more similarities between Solarian and Kineticist I think?
Not what I get out of it. A monk or war priest with witch hexes (and no spells, but possibly full bab) seems more on point
The 'gravity shove' the solarion uses at the end of the playtest from... January... Came across as a 1/creature/day ability, or at least that was my impression.
The defensive ability seems to be a stance or attunement that could be swapped between two modes.
The energy blade struck me as on the terrible monk/war priest damage progression, which reads 'until you're 12th level in this class, just buy a greatsword'
Developer, Starfinder Team
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The energy blade struck me as on the terrible monk/war priest damage progression, which reads 'until you're 12th level in this class, just buy a greatsword'oh god, i hope they arent just repeating a monk's flurry of misses with the Solarion...
Not even a little.
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My general stance is: relax, and don't stress about rules mechanics dimly gleaned from playtests. And even when the book comes out, don't panic if what you read at first doesn't sound ideal. Give it a try; that's the difference between theory-crafting and actual play experience.
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My general stance is: relax, and don't stress about rules mechanics dimly gleaned from playtests. And even when the book comes out, don't panic if what you read at first doesn't sound ideal. Give it a try; that's the difference between theory-crafting and actual play experience.
Here be words of wisdom.
We will agree to disagree on the relax approach. Now I would agree in the grand scheme of things it is just a Game. But, the treasure box approach of wait till you get the book and discover all the neat rules can back fire. Ask some of the fans of 4th ed about how they like 5th. Me personally I like 5th, those in our group who liked 4th do not. I have always been big believer in extensive previews. People will know what they are buying. Now you can still have surprises in the book, but I think the basics of how personnel combat works should be explained. I think they will be different enough people may or may not like them.
For example how does the full attack action work. I think it is different. Is it like 5th where certain classes give you access to more than one attack. There is no -5 penalty for each attack after first.
Is there a difference in damage other than healing rate. Do you take an effect when you take hit point damage. The old Star Wars Wound Vitality there was penalty. Also Pathfinder had similar system as optional rule. Owen K.C Stephens did a Wound Level system for Star Wars Saga system.
Do you get your bonuses to hit from your class. As you level up you get +1 to hit ect. Will equipment give bonus to hit for accuracy for example if proficient with the weapon. Will the bonuses be flattened like in 5th. Max +6 from proficiency.
I do not think answering these questions would reveal all the cool secrets of the game, but would give people a better understanding if they may like game or not.
Dave2
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-rules information request-
They've been telling us about the interesting rules improvements, ones that tie into the setting. Stuff like the new AC system (tied into futuristic weapons), how crafting imbalances have been corrected (tied into the economy and how interplanetary trade works), and starship combat (a staple of sci-fi). THings like iteratives and bonuses are comparatively boring, and would only serve to turn away people with strong opinions before they have any way to actually try the game out. It wouldn't make sense for Paizo to publish most of the rules in blogs before releasing the book, whereas things like the races and classes generate excitement and get people to start thinking about characters they want to play, regardless of the exact mechanics involved.
There's also a tension between revealing things in time and the rate of preview blogs. Presumably they still want a cool preview blog a week before release ("Nearly here!" would be something of an anticlimax, I feel).
If they're saving something cool and meaningful until a week before the book releases then, by definition, the previews further and further out from streetdate will have to give a less complete picture of the game than some would want.
I've seen products be previewed too late, leading to disappointment and a feeling of bait-and-switch. However, I've also seen companies go too early so that when it arrives it's no longer exciting and results in a flop.
Timing this stuff is why paizo hire people like Jenny Bendel, I suspect. We each have our own, ideal rate of release - she* has the difficult task of mapping out what's best for us collectively, for the company, for the game and has to do all that within the constraints of an ongoing company who already has fans clamouring for more preview material devoted to their pet interests. It can't be easy to determine what the right amount of info is, given the disparate goals paizo have set themselves.
Not to mention, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that at some point, Starfinder will get the same reference doc treatment Pathfinder has, with the core rules available online (unless they've announced otherwise and I just missed it.) I'm sure you'll get plenty of chances to try before you buy, but I doubt it's going to be several months before release.
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I would say that you those very people with the strong opinion are who you want to preview for. AS far as irrelative attacks being boring. I would say race and Iconic previews are boring along with crafting. Those are very minor things compared to how attack/irrelative work and damage. Paizo staff themselves said personnel combat was large part of the game. As far as the giving people little information so they do not form an opinion before they buy it can backfire. Those that pre-order the game then get the game and are upset about what they find is a lost customer. This is not like Pathfinder which was an evolution of 3.5. I think this is much more than that. It would be more like Pathfinder to 5th. For me I am getting books regardless.
Now as far as the previews and Blogs go. The great fans here have posted links to all the major interviews and demos to include the starship combat one. So as far as I can tell the staff other than few very brief blogs on race and iconic have not previewed much at all.
Dave2
I am all for class previews, but we have yet to get any previews on that either.
Dave2
I think it is a valid point as far as worrying about previewing something to early. But we are now cruising through April. Soon August will be upon us. Pathfinder provided an extensive preview a year out and did not seem to hurt sales. I have never bought into the idea you can have too much information about a product you are going to buy. You can definitely have too little. If they did post the entire combat and class chapter that would be fine. Saying you do not want people to know the information seems like hiding something. Now I do not expect them to release entire chapters nor do I think they are hiding something. I think they are doing very poor job of previewing. They could provide run down of personnel combat or preview various classes. Or even provide preview schedule. Now I think Paizo Con is in June? I think allot of information may be gathered then. Maybe they will actually post some of the information on their web site and not rely on the fans to do it.
I would not think that knowing major concepts such as attack actions, how bonuses to hit, and damage work would be pet interest. It would give insight into the personnel combat system which they themselves said was huge part of the game.
As far as I can tell the biggest competition to Starfinder will be the Star Wars Rpg by FFG. It is very complete game. They also provide previews of their product from the actual product and put it on their web page. They do not rely on their fans to find interviews and post links on their site.
It also has some pretty popular movies to help stoke interest.
Dave2
I have never bought into the idea you can have too much information about a product you are going to buy.
I have definitely got excited by RPGs when they've been announced and then lost interest prior to launch. I buy a huge number of products and it's probably related that I have a short attention span - if you catch my eye but then can't actually give me any concrete product, chances are I'll have moved on by the time you're ready. If there's no surprise left to uncover, I'm quite unlikely to buy it at all (that process of discovery is part of what I enjoy about reading a new Rpg).
We're all different and whereas as customers we have just ourselves (plus a few, a dozen, a hundred...? friends) to cater to in framing our requests for information, paizo have to judge the market as a whole. The rate of release they choose will inevitably involve too little information for some (with your preferences) and too much for others (with mine).
There's also a definite difference in PF's launch compared to this. Pathfinder was all-or-nothing - here they need to be careful not to reduce the focus and attention they're devoting to marketing Pathfinder in case they generate Starfinder sales at the expense of their other lines. That would be a dire outcome (inevitable, to some extent, but I suspect that minimising that factor will be critically important to their marketing strategy).
Also, goblin ships are a thing in the starship combat playtest, and it seems they have the special ability to ram that other starships do not have. Not that that's going to stop me!
This is not 100% accurate. It was stated in that live stream that the ramming rules were something that the GM and, IIRC, Jason Buhlman had been 'working on' but that were still 'in progress'.
While it was the goblin ships doing the ramming in that scenario I don't believe it was an ability that was special to goblin ships alone. In fact the GM said that he probably should not even be using those rules but that for the fun factor he was going to do it at the end of the video.
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I can respect that discovery is what you enjoy. I am at the other end of the spectrum as far as discovery. That being said I also have played systems from Fate to Phoenix Command/ Living Steel (Leading Edge Games). So I pre ordered 2 copies from hear and 1 from Amazon. So the system tweaks really want have a super big impact on my opinion, but I also like 5e. There may be a large chunk of the Pathfinder Crowd who will not share my views. I think letting them make an informed choice may be the to go. I think there is happy medium too much information and not enough. Right now I think we may be at the not enough point.
Dave2
I just realized the perfect setting that Starfinder can emulate. Phantasy Star. Especially Phantasy Star Online, since we will have elves by default.
Very true I am in that boat to. As I have said before I have ordered 3 copies and what rules they put in should be fine with me. I can make some educated guesses. My point has been the very odd way they are previewing and marketing their major release. Since this is not an IP they can release whatever information they want. It is true that the best way to make an informed purchase is to wait for the release.
I would think Paizo would want to do pre-orders. I would think they would release previews to inform customers so they would buy the product. So far the authors of the product have done demos and interviews that were not posted buy staff but were posted by fans. There have been a number of questions about various topics go unanswered.
It gives the impression that they are half heartedly marketing their major release of the year. It may be time to rethink the decision of no information without approval. Whoever, the decision maker is about the flow of information should be told to rethink their stance on the flow of information.
Dave2
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Something else to keep in mind...releasing explicit rules info (say, a chapter on combat) in isolation without the rest of the rules could do more harm than good. Without seeing the total system, you are likely to get people who will make assumptions on how something works, than go off on lengthy rants not based on facts, but just supposition.
The above I think is a big reason why Paizo has sort of stopped doing playtests for the most part.
I would have you look at damage scaling post and know I would not be the only one interested in this. I would guess based on that statement you would be a player and not the DM. You really should be interested if you are player or DM. The things mentioned could be difference from Pathfinder to 5th which are different games. I would guess most people on the boards Play Pathfinder and lets say not Fate for a reason. They may like the crunch and how the rules work in Pathfinder. This would be the reason they play Pathfinder and may care about how those things work because they will have impact on the game. So these topics may be boring to you, but not others.
Things such as attack actions, where the bonuses come from, and how damage works will have much bigger impact than telling you what the iconics are and brief blurbs about the races will. In fact it will have an impact on how your character functions and the things they can do in about 70 percent of the game. Starfinder like Pathfinder is not collaborative story telling game Like Fiasco. It will define the cool things your character can do.
The Starship combat was demoed and themes can have big impact on Starship combat. So they could also describe personnel combat. I would tend to agree if you preview classes without giving some brief information about personnel combat that could be misleading.
I think I mentioned previews from FFG (Fantasy Flight Games) who is company about same size as Paizo. It does not take allot of staff to cut and paste sections of the book and brief article discussing them.
I would love class preview I do not think we have any.
Now as I have mentioned before, I am system flexible and the changes will not have big effect on how I view the game. However, if 100 people pre-order the game then get it and hate what they see that is self inflicted wound. They will not give the game chance. If you did provide previews and the same 100 people hold off because they did not like what they see initially, may warm up to the game after playing it.
Dave2
I'm personally still not totally sold on Solarions, probably because I've been getting all my info from blogs and text information and not interviews and such. A melee based class in a sci-fi setting like this seems a bit pointless, especially when you bring up that they require the use of magic in order to actually get weapons for themselves. Summoning weapons is cool and all, but making an entire class based around it seems a bit weird when they could just buy a magic chainsword and some power armor or something. Feels a lot like monks, maybe crossed with paladins (which doesn't work in PF. Very few classes can effectively multiclass with monks). Now, granted, they haven't released more than a single sentence on the Solarions (being "Solarians are mystical melee combatants who harness stars and black holes to create weapons and armor from energy, and can manipulate these balanced, fundamentally opposing forces of energy."), which is all the information I have on them right now, but still. I need more info before I can start going off on how cool they are. Heck, for all we know they could just be Mystics but with better gear.
But I'm still pretty sure that the name is just a cheap marketing ploy that the founders of the class decided to use in order to attract more people. I mean, look at it, it's the most dramatic of all the class names so far, and the only proper noun (only one that must be capitalized). Everything else is a real word.
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I think it is a valid point as far as worrying about previewing something to early. But we are now cruising through April. Soon August will be upon us. Pathfinder provided an extensive preview a year out and did not seem to hurt sales. I have never bought into the idea you can have too much information about a product you are going to buy. You can definitely have too little. If they did post the entire combat and class chapter that would be fine. Saying you do not want people to know the information seems like hiding something. Now I do not expect them to release entire chapters nor do I think they are hiding something. I think they are doing very poor job of previewing. They could provide run down of personnel combat or preview various classes. Or even provide preview schedule. Now I think Paizo Con is in June? I think allot of information may be gathered then. Maybe they will actually post some of the information on their web site and not rely on the fans to do it.
I would not think that knowing major concepts such as attack actions, how bonuses to hit, and damage work would be pet interest. It would give insight into the personnel combat system which they themselves said was huge part of the game.
Th very first blog preview of the PF RPG came out in the middle of May, 2009. This was before PaizoCon (which is at the end of May), and is significantly earlier than any other GenCon hardback release has been previewed since.
This means, at the absolute minimum, you shouldn't be looking for previews for another month.
You might consider investing in a little bit of patience. Trust me, I understand the excitement. But the game is gone to the printers now. What's done is done, and nothing will change it between now and August. Nothing will get it into your hands any sooner than GenCon or when the subscriber copies arrive.
I'm personally still not totally sold on Solarions, probably because I've been getting all my info from blogs and text information and not interviews and such. A melee based class in a sci-fi setting like this seems a bit pointless, especially when you bring up that they require the use of magic in order to actually get weapons for themselves. Summoning weapons is cool and all, but making an entire class based around it seems a bit weird when they could just buy a magic chainsword and some power armor or something. Feels a lot like monks, maybe crossed with paladins (which doesn't work in PF. Very few classes can effectively multiclass with monks). Now, granted, they haven't released more than a single sentence on the Solarions (being "Solarians are mystical melee combatants who harness stars and black holes to create weapons and armor from energy, and can manipulate these balanced, fundamentally opposing forces of energy."), which is all the information I have on them right now, but still. I need more info before I can start going off on how cool they are. Heck, for all we know they could just be Mystics but with better gear.
But I'm still pretty sure that the name is just a cheap marketing ploy that the founders of the class decided to use in order to attract more people. I mean, look at it, it's the most dramatic of all the class names so far, and the only proper noun (only one that must be capitalized). Everything else is a real word.
Here is more information that was revealed on the Solarian back in December interview that Game Informer did with Sutter:
"But the Solarian is really my favorite, because I think it’s the most different from anything we’ve done in Pathfinder. You can kind of say: “Well, Soldier is like a Fighter and the Operative is kind of like a Rogue,” but Solarians are sort of this mystical kind of group who are all about maintaining balance, and so they’ve got this fundamental mechanic where they’ve got some powers that pull them toward one side of this energy spectrum, which is creating energy instead of destroying it. Like sort of supernovas on one side and black holes on the other. Gravity vs. energy. I’m explaining this terribly, but the book does it better. Basically, unlike the Force in Star Wars, which is varied by a light side and a dark side, imagine a Jedi with no moral component, just different abilities from different sides. As you use the abilities for one side or another, you get better at those and worse at the others. During combat, which abilities you use now affect which abilities will be most powerful or most available to you a few rounds later in combat, and so you’re always looking down the road. There’s an element of balance and an element of deliberately throwing off your balance so that you can go super hardcore exploder, or go the other direction and be doing force pull kind of stuff. I just think that it’s really interesting to have that balancing mechanic, and I don’t think people have seen that before out of anything we’ve done. They also fight with either energy they make into weapons and armor for themselves, so they have, I wouldn’t say a lightsaber, but imagine if you could take that same energy weapon idea but make it into whatever you wanted."
I found it here.
That should give you a better idea of what to expect from the Solarian. I know it isn't the exact rules, but I think you can definitely see the direction they are going with this.
I think you may be missing the point and oversimplifying things. I actually play much more Apocalypse engine stuff and Savage Worlds than Pathfinder related to the crunch. It sounds to me like you would be more interested in playing Fate rather than Pathfinder. By the way Fate is great system.
Everything I mentioned attack actions, where the to hit bonuses come from, how high they go, and damage gives the game its feel. You say theses things do not matter. These things define the game and make the game D&D 5th, 4th, or Pathfinder. I like D&D 5th. Quite a bit actually. So if you are fine with playing something that is cross between D&D 5th and Pathfinder great I am to. I am not so sure everyone on boards and all of their fans will be. I hope so. I personally do not have much invested in what type system this is. I am advocating for previews for you not me. AS I have said before I am perfectly fine with playing cross between D&D 5th and Pathfinder. I hope everyone else is to. I want the game to be a success.
Also other than rolling a d20 AD&D 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, and D&D 5th have major difference to include no THACO, a unified mechanic of rolling high, and other different options such as feats. In the case of 5th Bounded Accuracy and Advantage and Disadvantage. So to say D&D has not changed in 40 years is not too accurate.
Dave2
Me too. It sounds like you would be happy with whatever blending of the system to. Cool. I am not sure that others will be. We really will not know for sure until August. All I am doing is guessing. I would say you are right in the respect that as long as you are having fun the rules do not matter from Fate to Phoenix Command.
For my groups the problem with 4th was going through Daily's and the encounter power and being stuck with at wills. 4 to 5 hour combats on one encounter. I think 13th Age does little better job of speeding up combat and is blend of 3rd and 4th.
The long and short of it is the things I mentioned will give them game a feel either closure to Pathfinder or 5th. Or somewhere in-between. But, as long as you are having fun the rules do not matter.
Dave2
Something else to keep in mind...releasing explicit rules info (say, a chapter on combat) in isolation without the rest of the rules could do more harm than good. Without seeing the total system, you are likely to get people who will make assumptions on how something works, than go off on lengthy rants not based on facts, but just supposition.
The above I think is a big reason why Paizo has sort of stopped doing playtests for the most part.
I am a complete n00b here, and this made me laugh. It seems to be the MO of a significant percentage of this community. Throw in the propensity to compare every piece of information released to how it compares to PF and that percentage triples.
Jawa just made the most sense I've seen here to date.
